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Conditional approval for 10,000 prefab houses in North
View(s):By Namini Wijedasa
The Cabinet has granted conditional approval to French steel giant ArcelorMittal to build 10,000 prefabricated houses for the war-affected in Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts, a senior official said. “It was decided that 10,000 houses could be erected in the two districts, provided that the people wanted them,” the official explained. Resettlement Minister D.M. Swaminathan confirmed to the Sunday Times that the specified number of 10,000 dwellings had been sanctioned but this newspaper learns the approval is conditional.
The Minister has been pushing for the project—initially numbered at 65,000 steel prefabricated houses from ArcelorMittal at an estimated US$ 1 billion—since mid-2015. However, progress has been slow due to strong resistance from civil society, housing experts and local and national politicians including all Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians. Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and the Jaffna District Coordinating Committee are also against the project.
On Thursday, Minister Swaminathan summoned the three Government Agents of Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi to his office in Colombo. He informed them that President Maithripala Sirisena had said the houses could go ahead if there was a demand for them among the intended beneficiaries. He said he would carry advertisements in newspapers seeking feedback.
“He has been directed by the President to ask the people their choice,” said TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, who has spoken out in Parliament and in public against prefabricated steel houses for the North and East. “He has said he will advertise. We will check to see how this inquiry is carried out. If the people are asked whether they want a house, they will say ‘yes’. Even if they are asked if they want a prefab house, they will say ‘yes’.”
“People will have to be given the choice between a masonry house and a prefab house,” he said. “If that is not done, we will challenge the process.”
On the ground, Minister Swaminathan continues to champion the controversial project. He argues that the Government is obliged to provide housing for people who lost their houses during the northern insurgency. Last week, he and Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake visited model houses built by ArcelorMittal in Urumpirai. He was later quoted by media as saying the initiative would go ahead despite TNA objections.
The Sunday Times met Minister Swaminathan this week in response to his own request for an interview. However, the interview was inconclusively ended. Present during the brief meeting was his Private Secretary Shane Dullewa, close friend and former brother-in-law of Ravi Wethasinghe whose company Kumarca Engineering is the logistics agent for ArcelorMittal.
“I only want to tell you that the cost of each house is now not Rs. 2.1 million but Rs. 1.6 million,” the Minister said, adding that the price had been reduced by removing the furniture, fittings and WiFi from the package. These components alone had been estimated by the company to cost Rs. 600,000.
The prefab steel houses have been opposed on many grounds including price. Traditional masonry houses have been built in the North and East for less than Rs. 1 million. An alternate proposal is available for brick-and-mortar dwellings, complete with a financial proposal to raise funds locally (the ArcelorMittal project envisages foreign borrowings).
Moratuwa University experts have said the houses have inadequate foundations, insufficient roof support, are at risk of corrosion despite the coatings provided, are poorly ventilated and have no hearth and chimney. They also said the dwellings have poor or non-existent capacity for extension or repair, a much shorter life span than block wall houses, are unlikely to create a sense of ownership, unlikely to foster the local economy and generate employment and are at least double the cost of a block wall house.
The Minister claimed the depth of the foundation of each house was one-and-a-half feet. However, a report commissioned by him from the University of Peradeniya says, “There is no foundation for the house…. Instead, the floor slab is first laid on the ground and the house is installed directly on this floor slab which has a thickness of about 150mm.”
The Peradeniya University team has said prefab metal housing is a good option for the urgent needs of displaced populations but that “there are certain improvements needed”. This includes strengthening the floor slab and constructing a rubble masonry foundation, reducing the span of the roof, providing stronger door hinges, providing ventilation openings (the houses do not have any ventilation openings except doors and windows), etc. None of these recommendations has been adopted by ArcelorMittal.
In a separate letter to the Sunday Times after the aborted interview, Minister Swaminathan inter-alia, states that the project to build 65,000 houses in the North and East was not an unsolicited project and that 35 companies bid for the tender. He says a Cabinet Appointed Negotiating Committee and the Project Committee evaluated the 35 proposals submitted and decided ArcelorMittal Construction, France was the most suitable.
He points out that the promotion of an alternate proposal after the completion of tender process by the Cabinet Appointed Tender Board Committee is to place a party at an undue advantage having not taken part in a fair and transparent tender process.